Castro Valley Library

Downton Abbey, the runaway hit television series from Masterpiece Theatre, is now in its sixth and final season on PBS.

If you’ve never heard of Downton visit the Masterpiece web site for a synopsis and videos. But if you’re one of the show’s many fans, you might be looking for a book or two to get you through some lonely Sunday nights when the show bids us farewell on March 6.

Julian Fellowes, the show’s creator, recently wrote that his initial inspiration for the show came from To Marry an English Lord by Carol McD Wallace and Gail MacColl, which details the history of American heiresses who, like the fictional Cora Crawley, came to England to financially prop up landed gentry and earn titles such as countess or baroness.

The Alameda County Library has other Downtonesque titles, be they about the aristocracy upstairs or the servants downstairs, for your enjoyment. Click the links for more information.

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

Aristocrats: Power, Grace, and Decadence by Lawrence James

Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir that Inspired Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey by Margaret Powell

English Country House Interiors by Jeremy Musson

Habits of the House by Fay Weldon (book 1 of the Love and Inheritance Trilogy)

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle by The Countess of Carnarvon

Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor by Rosina Harrison

And for fans of Mr. Carson…The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro